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Saturday, December 26, 2015

Hi everyone - this is Alex Hanna, Leslie's son. I'm sure by now you have all heard the news. If not, I want to apologize for sharing it in this way. Yesterday afternoon (Dec. 25), our mother passed away. It was far more sudden than any of us expected. Her family is here, and we are so very grateful for all the support and love over the years.

As you all know, she placed an incredible value on her friends. You are all among her best friends, and for that, I want to share my thanks. She will be missed.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This will be a two-week challenge to allow all of us to spend time with our families.

This week's theme is a repeat from a few years ago: My Precious. We'd like you to use something you have hoarded that you never, ever, planned to actually use. Piece of pretty paper? Special embellishment? A piece of special ribbon or lace? Suck it up and use it!

I learned something about myself while playing this challenge: I am not a hoarder, at least not any more. I actually don't have anything that I haven't cut into because I love it so much. I have things I haven't used because I forgot I had them, but nothing that would make me cry to use.

That said, here's my card, then I'll explain:

Back in my craft show days, people would comment that they don't often see people selling cards. I'd tell them quite honestly that's because there's no money in it. Let's say your booth fee is $80 (I always tried to stay under $100). For you to make back your booth fee -- the cost of just showing up -- you'd need to sell 20 $4 cards. And that doesn't cover the cost of materials to make and package those 20 cards.

I was always pondering a higher-end product I could sell to make my life easier. I hit on the idea of making wine journals, where people keep track of wines they've had and take notes on flavor, etc. Here's my original post back from 2008.

Anyway, for the wine journals, I added pages cut from some pretty 12x12 Laura Ashley vellum. I liked my mock-up, so I ordered more of the 12x12 sheets of vellum. Then I never made more wine journals, so I had this cache of pretty vellum. It made the cut when I purged my 12x12 papers, so I guess I like it.

ANYway, for this challenge I used a piece of the printed vellum. It's quite busy, so I just added a sentiment, and a wine glass cut from card-stock-weight vellum. I colored the back of the wine glass and stuck it to the front with a piece of Kool Tak. I used my tape runner to apply some stick behind the sentiment strip, wine glass, and a few of the darker spots of the vellum to stick it to the front of my card base.

Pretty simple to make once I got a clue.

So, are you hoarding something special, waiting for just the right moment to use it? I know you bought two of them; don't we all? One to keep and one to use, right? So use it, then stop over at Shopping Our Stash to link up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Some of the stuff I used: a piece of Laura Ashley printed vellum, Copic V09, card-stock-weight vellum, and the following:

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

It's Tuesday, and time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Let It Snow, and we'd like you to focus on snow, or a snowman, for your project.

Here's my card:

This stamp set is ancient, at least in stamping terms. It's an old MFT set, and it's still available!

I like how easy it is to use - just stamp and color. I added some clouds, then pulled out my also-ancient Liquid Applique to add snow at his feet. I love how it puffs up when you heat it. I also love that it's still white. I was kindof expecting it to be yellow by now.

So, got snowflakes or snowmen or faux snow in your stash? Why not pull 'em out and join us at SOS this week?

Saturday, December 12, 2015

I thought I was officially done making my holiday cards. Then I started to clean all the holiday remains off my desk and re-discovered a stamp set I took out two months ago to make a Christmas card. So this had to be done:

This is for a friend in Boston who says "card" like "cod", so it's perfect, at least in my mind.

I did it a bit differently this time. I usually stamp the fish on a remnant, then cut it out, but today I stamped it onto the card base, stamped it again on some masking paper, and masked the stamped image before I colored the background. I'm not sure why, as it wasn't really any easier, just different.

I used three colors of Distress ink for the water, then stamped the top part of the water with Pool ink and a wave stamp. I sponged in a few clouds at the top so it wasn't so white, and after I stuck the panel to a card front, I added a Santa hat.

NOW I'm done. All my holiday stuff has been stowed for another year. Well, no, probably only until January when those Jingle Belles fire up their 2016 challenge series. But for a few weeks, it's all put away.

Tomorrow I shall begin writing on the insides of the cards. My goal is to get to the Post Office by Tuesday. I'm afraid Monday will be a madhouse. It may be the official mailing day for Christmas, so I'm not taking any chances. Normally I'd just stuff the envelopes into the slot and run away, but I have a few with questionable thickness, and a few going to Canada, so ... yeah, I'll stand in line for those.

I hope you're making progress on your card-making. And if you've already mailed your cards, I don't want to hear about it. Darn over-achievers.

Edited to add: I'm linking up with the Snarky Stampers, since their last challenge this year is:

NOW I'm done.

Thanks for stopping by!

Some of the stuff I used: Cod and Cod Sayings from River City Rubber Works, Little B Santa hat stickers, Copics (N1, N2), and the following:

Friday, December 11, 2015

Yeah, it's crooked. It was more crooked before, so please just tilt your head a bit. I thank you.

I started out by opening my NBUS (never been used) Bokeh Dots stamp set from Ellen Hutson. I inked the images in Memories Unicorn ink, then heat-embossed them with Hero Arts white embossing powder.

Then I masked off a strip of the panel and blended three Distress inks over the embossing.

This is actually the second card I made. I managed to destroy the first one when I mis-stamped the sentiment. I knew I should have used my MISTI!

The boo-boo:

Whoops!

I considered cutting or artistically tearing off the corner and inking up the card stock behind it. That would have been easier than starting over, but I started over. I did use my MISTI for the sentiment on the finished card.

Those dark smudges you see are actually stars from my Martha Hearts and Stars confetti. I attempted to cover up some imperfections in the card stock (probably schmears, but I'm in denial), but I think it just may draw attention to them instead. Oh, well.

A few words of caution: It's important to at least pretend to pay attention to what you are doing. When one gets into mass-production mode, it's easy to grab the wrong product. In my case, I had a teeny tiny star to glue down, so I grabbed the small bottle of Matte Medium to add a drop of glue. Unfortunately, when I turned it over to do that, I dumped a squillion tiny stars everywhere. Can you say "static cling"? OMG, what a mess. I got most of them back into the bottle, but I suspect I'll be finding those babies all over the house for a while.

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Send me an email at lqhanna@gmail.com.

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Everything on this blog is (c) 2007-2015 Leslie Hanna. I share my creations (and the inspiration for same) for the sheer love of the craft. If you like my stuff enough to CASE it, please go right ahead! All I ask is that you please link back to my post that inspired you, as I would surely do the same. Thanks!